


Ghosts

by nenya_kanadka



Category: The Goblin Emperor - Katherine Addison
Genre: Comfort, Implied Relationships, Loss, M/M, Pre-Slash, UST
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-01-08
Updated: 2016-01-08
Packaged: 2018-05-12 13:33:22
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,220
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5667853
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nenya_kanadka/pseuds/nenya_kanadka
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A sleepless night after Dazhis's revethvoran. What is Beshelar to do for the spiritual care of a maza?</p>
            </blockquote>





	Ghosts

**Author's Note:**

  * For [sevenall](https://archiveofourown.org/users/sevenall/gifts).



It was not sound that woke Beshelar from an uneasy sleep, but some unexpected movement in the spartan quarters he shared with Cala Athmaza. The moon streamed in bright and cold through the small window between their beds, casting Cala's tall gawky shape in even longer shadows. The maza stood hunched by the frost-rimed window, staring out into the night, nose pressed almost to the glass. He drew a long, shuddering breath and leaned heavily on the windowsill.

Unnerved, Beshelar pushed himself up onto one elbow. As his eyes adjusted to the darkness, he saw that Cala was trembling, small shudders running up and down his back as if he were naked in the snow outside. Worry curdled Beshelar's stomach. His Serenity's abduction and the revethvoran that followed had shaken all of them, but until now Cala had been steady and calm as he ever was. Ever the gentle look, the kind word that befit his position, while Beshelar had raged against the conspirators, against Dazhis, and against himself.

What was Beshelar to do for the spiritual care of a maza?

He must have rustled the bedclothes, or sighed, for he saw Cala's back stiffen. He cursed himself for a fool. Better to have turned away and shut his eyes and let Cala have his dark moment in peace, than to bring his unhelpful presence to Cala's attention. 

He opened his mouth to say _Art all right?_ , but before he could speak, Cala broke the silence. 

"Why?" Cala said. His voice sounded rough, as though he had been shouting. Or weeping. 

_Because they are faithless traitors,_ Beshelar thought, but words were tumbling from Cala's mouth as if speaking had broken a dam across the Istandaärtha. 

"Why did we not see? Why did we--how did we miss that he was slipping from us? We and he trained together. We were brothers in arms. We--" His voice choked to a stop. He had turned his face aside so Beshelar could not see his expression, and Beshelar was guiltily grateful not to have to look more closely. Cala took a deep, ragged breath. "Could I have stopped Dazhis, if only I had seen what troubled him?"

 _Still carest for the revethvoris?_ Beshelar thought. He said awkwardly, "It is not your fault, Cala." 

Cala rounded on him. "We know that." Back to the formal pronoun, pulling it close around himself like a cloak. But his left hand still trembled where it gripped the windowsill. 

"Perhaps..." Beshelar cleared his throat. "He took care not to open his thoughts to you. Perhaps he knew you would persuade him and he did not wish to be persuaded." The words felt thin and empty in his mouth, facile and obvious. 

Cala's body sagged against the wall. "We loved him," he said in a hoarse whisper. "We find we cannot cease to care, even now. Our only complaint since we began to serve His Serenity was that we saw so little of one so dear to us, because we served at a different hour than he did. And now we...we have lost not only Dazhis but what--what we had relied upon for so long. Every moment of trust broken in hindsight, every intimacy a lie..." 

Beshelar still could not see Cala's face. He knew not what comfort he might give: neither a manly clap around the shoulders, such as he might have offered to another soldier, nor the tender words his mother had murmured in his ear when he was very small, seemed of any use. The trust and intimacy Cala spoke of made something inside him stir with longing. It was a discomforting feeling and he pushed it aside to examine later, if at all. Still, he could not help leaning forward to catch whatever Cala might say next.

"Beshelar," Cala murmured, "am I a fool?" 

He thought _No_ and _Yes_ almost at the same moment. It was idiocy to become so entangled in the life of another that one could not see their flaws. And yet, if it had been Cala who had betrayed them all...Beshelar rejected the thought violently before it could fully form. It would not, could not, ever be Cala. _An it were?_ whispered his conscience, _Wouldst find it easy to cast him aside as duty required?_

"No more a fool than I," he said gruffly. The words he searched for were heavy on his tongue. "We must all of us trust our comrades, or go mad. Canst not chide thyself for that. But I..." He looked at Cala washed in moonlight, his blue robes turned to black and white, his pale hair tumbling around his shoulders. "I am sorry for what thou hast lost." 

Cala pressed both hands to his own face, covering his eyes. "I thank thee," he murmured. 

He was no more than an arm's length away, and he swayed above Beshelar like a sapling in the wind. He put out a hand to the windowsill again, and missed, and stumbled. Beshelar was on his feet and catching him before he was aware that he had left the bed. Cala threw his arms around him and buried his head against Beshelar's shoulder for a dozen heartbeats. Beshelar felt chilled except where Cala's over-warm body was pressed against his front, and he could feel the long muscles of Cala's back shivering under his hands. 

"Art well?" he said after a long peculiar moment in which the moon dipped behind a cloud and the dachen'maza trembled in his arms like a street waif. Almost he entertained the thought that his mother's lullabies might not be so useless after all. 

"Yes," said Cala, but his hands tightened in Beshelar's nightshirt and it took him several full seconds to gather himself and pull himself upright. 

"Canst sleep?" asked Beshelar. As Cala stepped back he felt strangely bereft, though why he should wish to continue embracing his partner in the dark he did not know. 

Cala nodded jerkily. "We shall try," he said with a crooked smile. He looked, still, like a man recovering from a great blow, but he grew steadier on his feet as Beshelar watched. Cala tugged his ragged sleep robe--shabbier even than those he wore for duty--into something resembling decorum, and looked down at Beshelar over his long arched nose. Then he reached out and caught Beshelar's arm with one bony hand, gripping his forearm like a fellow soldier. The touch was begun and ended in a blink of the eye, but it kindled again that nameless warmth beneath Beshelar's breastbone. 

Beshelar's bare feet were numb with cold by the time Cala turned back to his bed, but he stood guard until the maza had crawled under his blankets and thrown an arm over his face. Then he crossed to his own bed and fell into it as silently as he could. He listened to Cala's breathing slow and even out, and watched the patch of moonlight slip across the floor for almost an hour. He did not know why he watched Cala as he might watch His Serenity, but it seemed important that nothing should further disturb Cala's sleep. 

When at last Beshelar closed his eyes, he dreamed of interposing his body between the revethvoris and Cala. It was many nights before he understood why.


End file.
